Opie, Thor, and Joyce did the same on the opposite side of the street. Thor moved up against the concrete foundation of the overpass, using the corner to shield himself.
Chibs skidded up beside Jax and jumped off his bike.
The BMW slowed as it rolled beneath the overpass, and the two men riding behind it throttled down. The car’s driver had seen them pull over—he couldn’t have missed it—and given their body language, the way they were taking cover, the way they all held their gun hands down at their sides, just out of sight, even an ordinary citizen would have known they were ready for a fight.
The BMW did not turn around, only rolled slowly until it stopped in the middle of the street, dead center in what would be the cross fire if bullets flew. The two guys on motorcycles—sleek red Kawasakis—halted fifty yards back, far enough that they could bolt if things turned ugly, report back to the boss.
The passenger window of the BMW slid down. In the darkness of the underpass, without even starlight to illuminate the face of the man inside, Jax could not make him out. A dome light inside the BMW clicked, and he flinched, surprised that the men inside would expose themselves like that.
The guy in the passenger seat was Viktor Krupin. He looked pale but fairly hearty considering he’d been shot in the shoulder a few hours earlier.
“Mr. Ashby,” Krupin said, his voice echoing against the concrete sides and roof of the underpass. The BMW purred, and the two Kawasakis growled quietly. “I would have thought the beating my boss gave you earlier would have discouraged you from breaking your agreement with us.”
Jax stared at him, thinking fast. Either Lagoshin had a way to track them or one of the Russians had been tailing them since the Orthodox church. Both options seemed unlikely.
“I haven’t broken any agreement,” he said, stepping out from behind his bike as he slid his gun back into his rear waistband. “And I figure if you’re up and riding around with that hole in your shoulder, it’d reflect badly on me if a couple of punches in the head kept me from doing the same.”
Krupin frowned. “You were to call me as soon as you had a lead on your sister’s location.”
Jax put up his hands. “That was the deal, but I don’t have shit. Just a string of names, people who might help narrow it all down for me. I didn’t see the point in boring you with that kinda thing. Figured once I had a location—”
“What do you have?” Krupin asked. He rested his elbow on the frame of the open window, deceivingly casual.
Jax’s whole body ached as he remembered the beating he’d received. “I’m not going to have you and Lagoshin going around beating the crap out of anyone who might have seen my sister. I want to find her, not scare her off… and I sure as hell don’t want you and Sokolov’s guys getting into a shooting match with her around.”
“We can guarantee her safety,” Krupin said reasonably.
“No one can guarantee her safety,” Jax replied. “Not even me.” He pointed up the road toward the men on the Kawasakis. “I’m gonna figure out where she is. Then I’m gonna get her out before the shooting starts. You want to send those two guys with us as insurance, that’s fine. I figure they’re gonna follow us anyway. Something happens that you won’t like, your guys can take care of business for you.”
Krupin narrowed his eyes. Jax could practically feel him searching for duplicity. The son of a bitch knew things weren’t what they seemed, but it was clear Krupin also felt very confident in Lagoshin’s ability to terrorize people. And Jax had no doubt that sending the two bikers to babysit him had been the plan from the outset, or Krupin wouldn’t have brought thugs on motorcycles.
Someone in the car began to speak to him in Russian. Krupin snapped angrily at the man, then opened his door and stepped out. Jax saw the driver of the BMW drawing a gun. Across the street, Opie, Joyce, and Thor still had their weapons out, ready for things to turn bloody.
Krupin beckoned to the Kawasaki riders, and the two men spurred their bikes forward, riding up to stop directly behind the BMW. They wore helmets, but when they raised their visors, Jax could see that one had gray eyes and one a cold blue. Krupin introduced them as Ustin and Luka.
“You go with him,” Krupin told them. “When you know the sister’s location, report back to me.” He turned to Jax. “Once I hear from them, you will have one hour to get your sister to safety. One hour. If you are still there when we arrive, or if you warn Sokolov and his men, you will all die together.”
Jax nodded slowly. Krupin stared at him a moment. Then he climbed into the BMW and it pulled away, power window gliding up. Despite all the talk of murder, Krupin had treated the whole thing like a business meeting, and Jax thought maybe that was all any of it was to him. Business. Nothing personal.
The thought made Jax want more than ever to shoot him.
As the others remounted their bikes, glaring at Ustin and Luka, Jax walked over to Thor, who sat on his idling Harley, putting on his helmet.
“Head back to the Tombstone,” he said quietly. “Tell Rollie what’s going on. Tell him I may need backup and that I need your club on standby. Stay with him till you hear from me.”
The big man scratched at his red beard. “You don’t want me to just call him?”
“No. I don’t.”
“I guess you don’t want to tell me why.”
Jax hardened his gaze. After a second, Thor just nodded, buckled his helmet, and took off without speaking to any of the others. Jax watched him go and then turned to his Russian babysitters.
“Try to keep up,” he said, and then he started for his bike.
12
Trinity and Oleg had made love quietly, well aware of the proximity of his comrades. His brothers. After several nights of broken sleep and days of emotional exhaustion, she had curled into the comforting crook of his arm and fallen asleep listening to his heartbeat and trying to decipher the meaning of the tattoos on his chest.
In the small hours of the morning—she guessed it must be 2 a.m. or so—her eyes opened and she was suddenly, irritatingly awake. Some nights she woke with a jarring disorientation, a terrible sense of dislocation, but tonight she knew precisely where she was and why.
Really, the why was the only thing that mattered, and the answer was: Oleg.
The hotel room’s window stood halfway open, letting in the cool night air. During the day the room baked, and even after dark it could remain muggy and stifling. Now, though, it was pleasant—almost chilly. If she let herself drift, just studied the stubble on Oleg’s jaw or the taut skin of his abdomen, she could almost forget the murder of Oscar Temple and the imminence of more bloodshed.
She caressed his chest, ran her fingers along the prominent lines of his rib cage. He shuddered in his sleep, edged slightly closer to her, and a small grunt came from deep inside him. Whatever Oleg had done, in slumber he looked innocent, his brow free from the troubled lines carved by life. It hurt her heart to think how much she loved him.
Why had she fallen for him, and so quickly?
She knew the answer, or at least part of it. She’d grown up thinking her father was a soldier named Duffy, who’d died in the service. Her real father was a man named John Teller, who’d died on the side of a California roadway. Trinity was still angry with her mother for keeping that secret. No matter what sort of man John Teller had been, she wished she had known him.
Men were a puzzle she’d spent her whole life trying to solve. Most of the men she’d admired as a girl had disappointed her in one way or another. Some had been RIRA, which had seemed noble to her when she was too young to know any better, and others had been unreliable. Drunks or gamblers. Men who liked to keep their thoughts primitive and their emotions buried.